Tim Harty, The Business Times

Caleb Umberger is pretty sure diners will notice one thing in particular about the pizzas he and Brooklyn Reuwsaat will be serving at their new restaurant, Trailblazer Pizza Company.

“The crust, I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I know I keep saying that, but I am.”

Umberger said every day the next day’s batch of dough gets made, so it’s fresh, never frozen. It’s hand-kneaded and hand-rolled. And Umberger says the difference is undeniable.

“Well, you can just tell in the way it cooks,” he said. “It’s crispy and clean, and you can tell effort was put into it.”

Effort has been put into a lot of things, including getting the financing to buy the former Pablo’s Pizza at 456 Kokopelli Blvd., Unit C, in Fruita. Getting a loan was difficult for a young couple – Umberger is 24 years old, and Reuwsaat is 22 – but they did it. Umberger said the restaurant was officially theirs as of Jan. 1, then they opened Jan. 3 and had a ribbon-cutting ceremony Jan. 4.

The effort began last spring when they learned about the Pablo’s Pizza in Fruita being for sale.

“We’ve always wanted to get into the restaurant industry,” Umberger said. “We didn’t anticipate it being so soon, but we had contact with the owner of the Fruita Pablo’s, and so when we heard it was for sale, we jumped right on it.”

They’ve been working there as managers since June, waiting for everything to come together to finalize the sale. Then, on Dec. 22 they shut down Pablo’s Pizza to work on their rebranding and reopened on Jan. 3.

Umberger and Reuwsaat could have kept the name Pablo’s Pizza, which has cachet in the Grand Valley. And it’s a special place for them. They met at Pablo’s Pizza as employees five years ago.

But they wanted to blaze their own trail, hence the name Trailblazer Pizza Company.

“We honestly just think it kind of represents who we are, wanting to be entrepreneurs,” Umberger said. “We’re always busy and looking for more to accomplish.”

In addition to the name change and the beloved pizza dough, Umberger and Reuwsaat made changes to the menu, offering “new and unique options that you don’t really see around,” Umberger said. “We have really good salads. We’re really looking forward to launching our new beer and wine menu here in the next couple weeks. We’re going to try to focus on solely local or Colorado brands. I’m going to try to keep it like Palisade for the wines, find local breweries, maybe some smaller guys to feature every month or so.”

They also updated the space, did some reorganizing to create about 10 more seats for diners, and they did a deep cleaning and put on fresh paint.

Then, they got a little crazy and added a TV, “so people can watch the games on Sunday,” Umberger said, adding, “We’re probably going to add a couple more. We’ve got some pretty good feedback so far.”

The feedback has been good about Trailblazer Pizza Company as a whole, and Umberger said he and Reuwsaat “really, really appreciate” the support they’ve received.

They also noticed new faces in the seats.

“We’ve been getting a lot of people from Junction, too,” Umberger said. “That was a customer base we didn’t really have before, so it is really awesome to see people from Fruita and the other side of the valley.”